Sotmr clouds over the road

What do you when your world is falling apart and there’s no rewind button?

I’ll tell you what I do…I run to the Lord.  I wish I could say that it’s a neat, tidy, faith-filled, hallelujah chorus type of run.  It’s not.  I’m usually crying a messy cry – you know, the ugly cry – feeling sorry for myself, sad beyond words, overwhelmed, and wondering why ONE MORE piece of my life is under attack or getting flushed down the toilet.  I wish I could say that I come up with Bible verses right away to encourage myself in the Lord.  But I don’t always.  Sometimes it takes a while to find my way out of the paper bag.

But I have developed a good habit over the past few years, thanks to a dear friend of mine who practices this all the time.  I write down all of my fears, concerns, worries, stresses, and disappointments in my journal.  Then I ask Jesus what he thinks about it all.  And then…I wait.

My pen is poised and I wait upon the Lord to answer me. I pray and ask Him to make my heart open to hear his voice and then I start writing.  I don’t critique my writing. I just write until I am done.

Then, I close my journal and don’t read what I wrote for a while. Sometimes, I wait a few hours.  Most of the time, I wait at least a day.  I am ALWAYS amazed at what Jesus says to me when I give him air-time. And I’m always amazed at how much of my prayer time I spend talking, complaining, begging and declaring, when in one moment, I could be getting a word of direction, correction and encouragement that could totally change the landscape of my perspective. I am always amazed at how exactly perfect the words of the Lord are, and how they reveal my heart, my position in Christ, and prophetically declare my purpose and His strategy.

I’m going to give you a sneak peak into my journal and write one of those words out for you so you can see all of the above in this word. In the season when I wrote this down, I was in an excruciating time.  I was crying a lot – like at work, which is not me at all.  I was having trouble sleeping.  And I was so depressed over this situation that I could not see hope for a breakthrough. I had played out every way that this situation was going to be horrible for years. So I wrote out every part of this situation that scared me and then I asked the Lord, “Jesus, what do You have to say about this?”

Now when you read the Lord’s reply to me, be looking for the following:

  • Revelation of the condition of my heart
  • Lack of condemnation when that condition is spoken of
  • Correction for my attitudes and perspective
  • Direction for how I need to move forward
  • Affirmation of who I am to Him

“I love you, Cecily. You are my beloved. I am fighting for you and the enemy must yield. You are doing a very good work in your heart. Keep your eyes on me – keep your heart pure. I will deal with the storm around you.  Keep your eyes on me and your faith in me. You know that I am able to bring peace where there is strife so worship Me as the Prince of Peace. Declare My peace in this situation. Lean into Me to find rest for your soul. A weary soul is not strong in faith. Lean into Me to find your affirmation and to feel My love. A downcast soul gets stuck. Lean into Me to have your wounds healed and your ungodly mindsets removed. My light and My life are needful for you when you are under attack.

The enemy has launched an attack against you so that you will be wounded and offended. Violently appose offense or it will kill your joy and all of the fruit that is manifesting in your life right now. This is his strategy. You will not let him win. Greater am I in you than all he has arrayed against you. There are more fighting for you than are against you.

This is warfare and I am teaching you how to recognize the strategies of the evil one and to fight the right way.

Train your brain to discard ungodly thoughts right away.  Discard them and replace them with a godly declaration. You will find Scripture to combat every lie. Yes, who can bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Fight from a position of affirmation and righteousness and you will be effective in this warfare. I teach your fingers to fight and train your hands for war.”

This word was so encouraging to me, because I didn’t feel that I was doing a good job walking in faith.  Hearing the Lord say that He thought I was doing a good work in my heart showed me that He is more interested in my pursuit than in my perfect execution.  I really was trying to press in to Jesus and walk in faith, but my emotions were tearing me apart and making me feel like I didn’t have faith.  Jesus showed me that I did have faith and He taught me how to access it by leaning into Him and allowing Him to strengthen and affirm me.

My self-esteem was really what was under attack during this time and it felt very personal.  I was questioning everything I did and feeling very insecure. I was allowing my mind to swim in the gutter. Jesus showed me that this was the attack and the strategy was to get my mind away from the things that make me a powerful child of God.  He gave me very specific and clear direction along with encouragement that I was going to succeed.

I can’t tell you how much of a weight came off my shoulders as I meditated on that word for the next few weeks.  Even today, re-reading it, I see new aspects of the Lord’s correction and direction that I need to be reminded of and put into practice in a fresh way.

Now you:

If you have never allowed the Lord to speak to you personally, I encourage you to try. You don’t have to be a special kind of Christian, or a blogger or a prophet to hear from the Lord.  It just takes a mustard-size seed of faith to step out and get yourself past your fear and embarrassment for listening to a God you can’t see.  Unfortunately, we allow pride to rip us off from far too many blessings because we can’t rationalize them.  To which point I would say that we as humans use less than 10% of our brains.  So who are we to say that we can figure out God and how He works, and then frame Him into a tiny religious box.  God is way bigger than any of us can imagine or think and He can speak and move and act in ways that blow our minds just because!